Lions, Candy eaters, and Bears- OH MY!

We couldn't quite decide which costume Ashton should dress up in for Halloween this year. Both are so dang cute, and he looked ferocious in both. Our original plan was to put him in one for trunk or treat and have him wear the other one on Halloween, but we skipped out on the trunk or treat this year because Ashton wasn't feeling too hot. I wasn't big on taking Ashton trick or treating this year. I think it's tacky to take a baby out who doesn't even know what's going on, and I figured he would have just as much fun handing out the candy in his costume. We had quite a few trick or treaters, and Ashton had a blast seeing all of the kids. I snapped a few fun pictures of him with some candy and pumpkins. I think the highlight was giving him tastes of some of the candy we had.

SAY WHAT?!?!

i ThInK tHiS pHoTo SpEaKs FoR iTsElF!!!!

Say cheeeeeese!

We decided to take a shot at capturing our own family picture for our Christmas cards this year. This isn't the picture we are using, but I thought I would share one of the few that we took. Yes it was tempting to go ahead and use this one-not only because of Ashton's funny expression, but because it was the very first one we took, and would have made for a quicker "photo shoot".

Arts and Crafts

So I volunteered to think up, and experiment with ideas for young women birthday gifts. This is what I came up with. They are very cute memory/photo boards. After brainstorming all of last night, and a very looong trip to Michaels and Wal-Mart today, I came up with a very cheap and easy way to make these. For less than 3 dollars I am proud to present these. They were very fun to create and make. And they are actually functional. We'll see what else I can come up with.

The itsy bitsy spider hid inside Tommy's shoe.

So let me start out by saying if you are deathly afraid of spiders like myself, you probably shouldn't read on...Erin, that means you. We woke up today to a cool, crisp fall morning. I love fall because it's the time of year for hoodies, puffy vests, fireplaces and hot chocolate. We planned to get some stuff done on the house, and have a nice relaxing day. Tommy had gone outside to check on some things only to quickly return to inform me that when putting one of his shoes (which had been in the garage) he had felt a pinch only to find a very nasty bite on the top of his right foot. Yes, his shoe had been home to a very disgusting spider. After he and our neighbor killed the arachnid, and noticed that it had a red splotch on it's back, we decided to call the dr. He told us to go immediately to the E.R. in case of it being a black widow. Now I'm all for E.R.'s, and being on the safe side. After professing my fears of a footless husband or worse, I convinced him to go to the hospital. To make a long story short we were able to bring the spider with us, and 2 hours, 3 doctors and 3 nurses later, we found out that it was probably a red back spider, and to "keep a good eye on it" and take it easy for a while. They also gave us an emergency prescription only to be filled if his condition worsens. Tommy graciously thanked the doctors for giving him a free day of sitting on the couch and watching football, and we were on our way home. I am happy to say he is doing great (amazing what a day of football, emmm, I mean rest can do).
We also got our first snow fall today. Actually it was a hail storm, but it still counts. So Erin (and any other arachnophobes who bravely read this post), please shake out your shoes before slipping into them. You never know who or what has moved in.

And let the crawling begin!

Well he's getting braver and braver everyday. I put Ashton on the floor today in the office while I checked my email, and when I turned around he was up on his hands thinking about crawling. He is very strong so I'm sure it won't be long before he will get up on his knees too and off he'll go.

Our family trip to Virginia was a blast. We spent a whole week seeing family and friends. It was nice to be back and show off Ashton to everyone who had only seen him in pictures. Ashton and I went back to my old office and had lunch with my boss and co-workers. He was so cute blabbing and laughing and smiling. Here are only a few pictures from our trip. We had an amazing time and Ashton was the star of the show everywhere we went. We can't even count how many people complimented us on him, or stopped to tell us what a beautiful well behaved baby he is. We are truly blessed to have him. Enjoy the pics!
Here is Ashton in one of his favorite toys-a bouncy chair. Thanks to Nathan and Erin for letting us borrow all of the baby essentials. I think it was Uncle Peter who put the Nike sweat band on Ashton. I think he's ready to be an athlete.Here is Tommy and Ashton playing with one of the two remote control cars at Grandma and Grandpas house. He was so fascinated by the toy. It was funny to see baby and dad enthralled with the car. Like father like son.
On Wednesday Grandma, Ashton and I went to D.C. for the day and did some exploring. We had fun walking around Hauns Park and enjoyed watching the ducks and boats in the water and the helicopters flying above. As you can see Ashton was all smiles and very content in his stroller.

These are pictures of an interesting statue called The Awakening. It's basically a guy coming out of the ground or "waking" from sleep. It was definitely different. I guess when you think you've seen almost everything in D.C....

This was at the new Air force memorial. It was a very large memorial and the picture above is only part of it. Ashton kept trying to turn around and look at the big soldiers behind us. Luckily a nice old man started whistling at us to get Ashton's attention to the camera.

Katie, Me and Kimmie at San Vito our last night in Virginia.
Uncle Peter and Ashton

Our great friends Jeremy and Natalie (and Ashton).

I'm sure you noticed that Grandpa Tom isn't in any of these. He left for business a couple of days after we got to Virginia, but he met up with us on Saturday and Sunday back in Colorado. Thanks to everyone for the fun visit-we'll catch ya next time.